Smart & Final sells to Apollo Management affiliate in $813.9M deal

Smart & Final Inc. has agreed to sell to an affiliate of Apollo Management LP for $22 a share in cash, the company said Tuesday.

The value of the deal, including the company's debt, is about $812.9 million, The board of directors of Los Angeles-based Smart & Final Inc. (NYSE: SMF) has unanimously approved the transaction which is expected to close by the end of the second quarter of 2007.

The Apollo affiliate has also entered a stock purchase agreement with Paris-based Casino Guichard-Perrachon, S.A. that owns about 55 percent of Smart & Final's common stock. The transaction is conditioned on the closing of the Smart & Final merger and the price will be based on the number of Smart & Final shares it owns at the $22 a share price of the Smart & Final merger. The remaining about 2.8 percent of Smart & Final's common stock that Casino holds will be acquired with the merger.

Smart & Final also released its fourth quarter results Tuesday. It reported sales of $491.4 million, up from $456.8 million in the year-ago period. Net income was $5 million, or 16 cents a share, down from $9.3 million, or 30 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

For fiscal 2006, the company reported $2.1 billion in sales, up from $2.0 billion in the year-ago period. Net income was $20.8 million, or 66 cents a share, down from $21.4 million, or 77 cents a share, in the previous fiscal year.